The discussion addresses licensing and usage of Discourse’s open-source, self-hosted version. fer asks whether plugins are free for self-hosted users and if the software can be used for commercial services. Lilly confirms that all plugins are available for free on the open-source version when self-hosting, with support limited to standard installation methods. They also confirm that the software can be used for commercial purposes as long as it is self-hosted. fer thanks the community for the clarification.
Hi community, I am new to discourse, and I want to better understand the licensing model. For what I read online I see its open source, so we can host it in our own servers or hosting servers and have a forum setup.
What I want to understand is if all the plugins will also be available for free on the Open Source version or if these are only available for paid customers on certain plans.
Additionally, I want to understand if I can use Open Source discourse for setting up comercial services or products.
You can use any plugins you choose if you are self-hosting, that is why we include a link to self-install plugins instructions on all of our plugin pages. Please note that we support only the standard install instructions for self-hosting. That isn’t to say other installs are not possible, but it likely won’t be as easy to get support here on Meta with non-standard installs.
You can use it for whatever purpose you wish if you are self-hosting.
welcome to Discourse Meta 
